Softball -- and more particularly, where to build a softball complex -- is one of those topics that everyone understands. So it was no surprise Tuesday night that things got a little heated when the San Jose City Council tried to decide between two competing sites for a marquee project that has been promised since voters approved a bond measure in 2000. If you listened carefully, you could hear the undertone of next year's mayor's race.

The debate was over whether to accept immediately a 12-acre donation of land from Arcadia/Evergreen Circle Development Co. or to postpone three months to allow more talks with the county about the fairgrounds site. Ultimately, the council voted 6-5 to postpone.

A couple of things we picked up: First, Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen, a declared candidate for mayor who voted for the Arcadia site, fulsomely praised Councilwoman Rose Herrera, whose district contains the 12 acres. Mind you, Herrera is a potential candidate for mayor. If she does not run, Nguyen would do well as the lone woman in the race.

Meanwhile, Councilman Sam Liccardo, another declared mayoral candidate and Arcadia site advocate, engaged in wordplay to remind listeners of his crusade for baseball. The councilman christened the four years that San Jose has awaited a decision from Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig on the A's move as a "Selig."

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Then he took a few jabs at county government, which includes another declared mayoral candidate, Supervisor Dave Cortese. In Liccardo's telling, it was more than three Seligs since the bond vote, two Seligs since the failed House of Blues proposal at the fairgrounds, and one Selig since George Shirakawa Jr. mused about bringing the Raiders to the site. Time for a Bud, anyone?

Attack on Measure P foe may have backfired

As San Mateo-Foster City School District leaders analyze what went wrong with Measure P, a proposed $130 million bond measure that voters rejected last Tuesday, they would do well to consider their ballot arguments.

Board President Lory Lorimer Lawson and four other proponents took a personal shot at their chief opponent, trustee Ellen Mallory Ulrich, in the written statements that accompanied the ballots mailed to district voters. It was an unusual move, and it appears to have backfired.

Ulrich was the only member of the board of trustees who did not support Measure P, which would have spent at least $80 million on facility upgrades to alleviate overcrowding, particularly in Foster City. She went so far as to author the ballot argument against the measure, which apparently didn't sit well with some of her colleagues.

In their rebuttal to Ulrich's argument, Lawson and company began by suggesting she was selfish. The school in Ulrich's well-to-do San Mateo neighborhood, Baywood Elementary, received a multimillion-dollar overhaul in 2012 thanks to a previous bond initiative.

"It's disappointing that after supporting a similar measure to renovate her own neighborhood elementary school," the proponents wrote in August, "the opponent won't support similar upgrades for other San Mateo and Foster City schools."

Ulrich did not return calls this week, but her fellow leader of the "No on P" campaign, Heidi Bowman, previously said they were motivated by the diss, which Bowman termed "unprofessional." They stepped up their fight over the next two months.

"She was upset about that," Bowman said. "That was when we rolled up our sleeves and said, 'OK, let's go.'"

We couldn't get hold of Lawson and the co-chairs of the "Yes on P" campaign for a post-mortem. There are plenty of reasons that Measure P failed. Ulrich and Bowman clearly made a compelling case for voting against it. But "Yes on P" leaders, unable to resist a personal dig at their opponent, may have shot themselves in the foot.

Three of Rosen's hires no longer on payroll

Six months after critics blasted Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen for three hires that proceeded in an unusual fashion -- with either the candidate's work history or the way they were chosen varying from the norm -- all three no longer take home a county paycheck.

The latest is Deputy District Attorney Jenny Jiang, who was the girlfriend of Rosen's wife's close colleague when she was hired.

Jiang's impressive résumé includes a law degree from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall, a federal clerkship and a stint at one of the best law firms in the state. But in contrast to hundreds of other job applicants, the Mandarin speaker was one of only three who were vetted in a series of private one-on-one interviews with Rosen administration officials rather than before a panel who would have tested her poise in a courtroom-like situation. Rosen said he condensed the hiring process for Jiang because she has superb credentials and had been offered a job elsewhere.

A few months ago, sources said, she told them she wanted to quit the $117,350 job and explore other interests. But at the request of the Rosen administration, they said, she agreed to take a six-month leave of absence and decide next year whether to come back. Jiang declined to comment.

In May, the county ordered Rosen to fire his top aide's brother-in-law, Robert Longwell, because he lacked the proper police credentials to work as an investigator for the office. The other hire, Cameron Day, was a longtime protege of a local congresswoman who gave Rosen a key campaign endorsement. Day was not kept on after an 11-month stint as an attorney.

Castilleja School pays fine, digs in over traffic

In the long saga that involves the traffic around Palo Alto's tony Castilleja School, we have a new chapter. You may remember that our last episode dealt with the city levying a $300,000 fine because Castilleja broke the enrollment limit of 415 girls for a number of years. We can report now that Castilleja has paid $256,000 to the city -- no small change.

But the school is not willing -- at least not immediately -- to follow the city's request to reduce the number of girls from the current 448 to the 415 to comply with its permit. Instead, it has hired traffic gurus who have promised reforms that can lessen the impact of traffic around the surrounding neighborhood. Castilleja also is running shuttle buses for the girls.

In a letter to the city (see www.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs), Castilleja says it will ask for an amended permit by January 2015 -- after it has time to evaluate the traffic plan. In short, the school is paying a fine and putting off the city's other demands for now. One resident who has followed events, Stan Shore, called it "hocus-pocus.''

Next serve is the city's. Steve Turner, the advanced planning manager for the city, told us that he expected to have a response this week.

Internal Affairs is an offbeat look at state and local politics. This week's items were written by Scott Herhold, Aaron Kinney, Tracey Kaplan and Paul Rogers. Send tips to internalaffairs@mercurynews.com, or call 408-975-9346.